


and the end comes too soon (like dreaming of angels)

by jinxfabray



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Always a Girl!Niall, F/F, M/M, Minor Character Death, Zombie Apocalypse, always a girl!louis, like rly minor characters and it's only vaguely mentioned, mild violence but it's rly mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 22:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3826936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinxfabray/pseuds/jinxfabray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>At some point in the past two weeks, Zayn realized if this is a game, it’s an eternal one, where they have to keep on playing until they lose. And losing means dying, and dying means becoming one of them, brainless, homicidal. But they can still pretend.</i>
</p>
<p>a zombie apocalypse au where a virus spreads through england and zayn meets harry at the most inconvenient of times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the end comes too soon (like dreaming of angels)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gravitycentered](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravitycentered/gifts).



> SO. HERE WE ARE. 
> 
> i've been wanting to write a zombie apocalypse au for a while now but never quite had the courage to do it, so when i got this prompt, i knew it was the universe telling me it was time to toughen up and get it done. i really hope you like it and that's somewhere along the lines of what you were expecting!
> 
> special thanks to n for giving me the idea for the plot and helping me figure stuff out along the way, and as always, to s for reading it over and being a pal in general.

The sun’s slowly starting to set.

Zayn’s not sure why it happens, but it’s been twenty eight days since all hell broke loose so he’s been around enough to figure out some patterns, and one of them is that at sunset, zombies tend to disappear. They’re crawling all over the place when it gets really dark, and then during the day there’s less of them but they’re still around. But during these minutes, usually after seven, when the sky turns into different shades of red, they are all gone and the streets are empty.

/Zombies./

He’s aware it’s probably the most childish term he could have chosen to refer to them, like something out of a comic book, but that’s exactly why they settled on it. The media was calling them all sorts of things, “The Deceased” being by far the most horrible, heart wrenching one, but they all sounded so real. If they call them zombies, they can pretend it is all just a game that will be over soon enough, and like with all games, they’ll switch it off and go back to their normal lives. Their world will be fine, his parents will be happy and safe, and everything will be alright.

At some point in the past two weeks, Zayn realized if this is a game, it’s an eternal one, where they have to keep on playing until they lose. And losing means dying, and dying means becoming one of them, brainless, homicidal. But they can still pretend, they can always pretend, and lying to themselves about it has so far made it slightly easier, so he’s not gonna stop now.

Next to him, Liam’s stirring awake. He’s not sure how long they’ve slept for -possibly an hour, they never sleep longer than that, they can’t, not when danger is right around the corner at all times. Zayn’s hungry, and they’ve gone without food for quite a while now, so he figures it’s time they stop hiding and go out into the streets to try and find some abandoned grocery store that hasn’t been entirely sacked yet.

“Hey,” Liam blinks slowly, sitting up and stretching his arms over his head. It’s been twenty three days since the last time Zayn spoke to anyone that wasn’t him, and he can’t help but think he’s been incredibly lucky that out of all the people in this world, it’s Liam he got stuck with, because he can’t imagine spending that much time alone with anyone else.

“I’m starving, come on,” he says, slapping Liam’s arm softly before standing up. They’re inside the one empty building they could find, in the highest floor, as locked up as possible, and if he remembers correctly, there was something that resembled a supermarket down the street. If they leave right now, they might get to it before they start crawling out of their hiding places.

It’s a short walk, and they’ve become fast enough to get down the stairs and straight into the store before they hear the first steps. Zayn starts to wander the hallways while Liam starts locking the place up with whatever’s at hand, he’s good at that. He’s good at lots of things that have come in handy since this whole thing began, like fighting undead people, carrying stuff around -including Zayn-, being generally very athletic, and always a great shoulder to cry on whenever something bad happens. He’s even great at comforting people and always saying the right things. Zayn isn’t good at any of those things, but it’s alright, he figures if they’re a team and one of them has all their bases covered, he’s fine as long as he’s not slowing them down.

“Did you check if there was a backdoor?” Liam asks from where he’s pushing a fridge up against the main entrance, but he’s not even done with that sentence before a loud bang gives him the answer. Zayn knew there was something he had to do before looking for food, but his stomach was rumbling and he forgot, and now there’s a herd of zombies on their way to eat them. Probably.

“Fuck, I’ll go- “ Zayn starts saying, making a headstart to where the noises are coming from, but as soon as he finds the door, it bursts open and there’s a bat being pointed at him, in the hands of someone who looks very much alive.

“Friend or foe?” The guy behind the bat asks, staring straight into his eyes very calmly as if there wasn’t a rumbling behind him that clearly indicates a bunch of zombies is chasing him.

Zayn can’t help but roll his eyes at that because even in the face of imminent danger, he’s not immune to horrible cliches.

“Friend if that means you’ll shut the door behind you and let me keep us from being eaten alive, alright,” he says as he tries to make his way past Boy With Bat to shut the door, but he gets a panicked look on his face and grabs his hand, shaking his head vehemently. It makes his hair flop around in a way Zayn shouldn’t be finding distracting, not right now, not when he’s about to die.

“You can’t, no, my friends are still there.” His eyes have gone wide open, and his eyes are darting back and forth between Zayn and the hallway behind him. “They’ll be here in a second, I promise. Please. I can’t leave them locked out.”

There’s such a look of absolute horror in his face that Zayn backs down, frowning heavily because he’s got literally three seconds to decide whether to save his life and Liam’s, or risk everything for some strangers he’s not sure even exist. For all he knows, they might be dead already, and in order to minimize the casualties they should clearly lock the door.

“Zayn, I have a bit of a situation here!” Liam shouts out from the other side of the shop, and Zayn snaps his head around only to find the main door bursting open right when the steps running to the back door he’s standing at become loud and clear.

Without giving it much thought, he grabs the boy’s wrist and starts running towards Liam. Behind them, there’s shouting, and since there’s a lot of swearing, he figures the boy’s friends are alive, but there’s no time to stop and check. There’s zombies coming from both sides, and the only way out is to fight their way through them, but if the boy stands there on his own then he has no chance. If they make a run for it though, running through the crowd and batting them off as best as they can, then maybe they will follow them and the way will be clear for his friends to make it out of the building.

He tries to explain this to the boy, and to Liam, who’s joined them in the great escape, but he’s not quite sure if they understand any of what he’s saying since it’s very hard to run and yell words that make sense. Either way, they’re both following him, so they must have understood what he’s going for because they don’t stop running after him until he’s made it back to the building he’d secured with Liam earlier. They make it to the first floor that’s luckily empty, and Liam instantly starts piling stuff up against the door.

He doesn’t let go of the boy’s hand until then, and suddenly he realizes he was grabbing onto him very tightly so maybe that’s why he was following him along, and he might kick him in the head for taking him away from his friends. Instead, the boy hugs him.

“Thanks. I would’ve just stood there and got myself eaten if you hadn’t dragged me away. Thank you.” The boy is hugging him so tightly Zayn can’t breathe.

“Harry?” A voice calls out from somewhere, and the boy lets go of Zayn at last, fumbling around in his pockets until he produces what appears to be a walkie talkie.

“Ni? Are you alright?” Harry asks, pressing the machine to his ear.

“Yeah, we’re fine, we made it to a safe spot.” There’s a silence, and Zayn can see the way Harry’s face falls. He’s not sure why it makes him want to hug him a little bit, but it does. “But listen, Harry. It’s a mess out here. There’s too many of them, and we’re gonna try to come and get you, but you have to stay safe, okay? We need you to be safe.”

Harry sighs, and he rubs a hand over his eyes.

“Fine. Staying safe, gotcha. I’ll see what I can do. Give my love to Lou.”

“Will do,” the voice on the line is already fading before it’s done talking, and Harry shoves his walkie talkie back into his pocket. He looks so sad and fragile that Zayn doesn’t even need to think about, he already knows he’ll do anything he can to talk Liam into letting him tag along. It might be hard, because he knows it’s a risk to add a stranger to their little pack, but he’s hoping he’ll be able to convince Liam if he gets to talk to him for a bit where the boy won’t hear them.

“You’re welcome to stay with us, you know,” Liam says before Zayn can even open his mouth, and then he looks back at him and actually dares pout at him. As if Zayn’s the one that needs convincing. “Right? He can come. He’s got a bat, and he’s good at swinging it around, so that will come in handy.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow, and then immediately realizes that might look like he’s not okay with Harry sticking around so he puts it down and smiles tentatively at him.

“Sure. We’ll help you get to your friends.” He shrugs, and Harry smiles back at him so wide dimples appear on both sides on his face, and the world is ending so clearly it’s not the time to be thinking about kissing pretty boys, but Zayn can’t help it.

“Thank you, guys, honestly. I really appreciate it. I know I’m technically a stranger but I promise I’m nice and I will do as much as I can to be helpful and not slow you down. You won’t regret this. I promise.”

It’s stupidly endearing, how thrilled he is about everything, and Zayn hasn’t seen anyone look this alive in a really long time. He’s gonna have to talk about this with Liam at some point, because they’ve never agreed to have someone join them, but then again, the last time they ran into someone was more than two weeks ago and it didn’t go well at all. For now, even though there is a voice in the back of his head telling him this isn’t such a brilliant idea, he’s happy to have someone else to talk to.

It’s dark outside, and from where they are, they can hear the zombies roaming around in the streets, lots of them in the hallways of the building, kicking at the walls and doors, trying to make their way inside. Liam’s secured the place as best as possible, but they all know sometimes, that’s not enough, and if they can smell them, then they’ll probably keep on trying to break into the place for the rest of the night. It’s not exactly a pleasant thought, and definitely not one that makes it easy to fall asleep, but they need to be as fast as possible and for that, they need to get some rest. As much as they can.

Out of the three of them, Harry’s the one that looks the most exhausted by far, or maybe he’s just the one that looks more willing to go to sleep, so it doesn’t take much to convince him and before long he’s fast asleep in a corner, all sprawled out on the floor.

“He looks a bit like a starfish like that,” Zayn comments without really thinking about what he’s saying. He hasn’t slept more than two hours in the past two days, but he doesn’t think he could sleep now anyway. Sometimes his need for sleep trumps everything else and he could possibly sleep a day away curled up in the middle of zombies wrestling to get to his body. Sometimes, he can’t stop hearing the noises around him and remembering the first time he heard zombies beating down a door like they’re trying to do right now.

“I guess so, I’ve never really seen one.” Liam’s resting his head against the wall, and his eyes keep shutting down for longer and longer intervals each time. He’s usually better than Zayn at sleeping when he has to, but he figures having a stranger sleeping there with them is what’s keeping him awake. He can’t just doze off and leave Zayn alone with Harry, obviously. It gives Zayn all sorts of confusing feelings. A part of him feels all warm and fuzzy at how protective Liam gets over him, while the rest of him feels absolutely useless because he knows he wouldn’t have made it a day without Liam watching over him.

“You’ve never seen a starfish?” He asks because sometimes it’s easier to talk about mundane things and pretend everything’s alright instead of jumping straight into discussing the awful things that surround them.

“I saw the one in Finding Nemo, but I don’t know how realistic that was, since it’s a movie for kids and all that.” Liam shrugs, and there was a time when he’d have fought anyone who dared call Pixar movies something as demeaning as movies for kids. But a lot has changed, and they’ve grown up faster than they could’ve ever expected.

“Oh. You’ve never been to the sea.”

It’s like things keep slipping past his mouth without him actually allowing them to. He didn’t mean to say that, he really didn’t, and as soon as the words are out there he sees Liam’s face fall spectacularly and they stay quiet for a moment. They were gonna go to the sea, because Liam’s family never had the time or the money to take him on a vacation, so after two years of saving, they were gonna go, just the two of them.

Now he’ll never see the sea.

“So Harry, you’re alright with keeping him?” Liam breaks the silence, gesturing towards the sleeping boy. “I’m sorry I told him to stick with us before I asked you, but he just looked- I don’t know. Like he needed someone to look after him, I guess.”

“He’s not a lost puppy we’ve rescued, Liam, he’s a human boy who wants to get back to his friends so they can go their own way. Don’t get too attached.” The chances of him having said that so he’d hear it himself are huge, but Zayn ignores himself and drags his eyes away from Harry’s sleeping figure. “He seems harmless. I don’t see why we shouldn’t help him out as long as he doesn’t suddenly turn out to be a psychopath or a very smart zombie disguised as a human.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Liam scolds him softly, kicking his ankle. “They’re humans too. Just, you know. Not living ones.”

“Liam.” Zayn doesn’t really know what to say to that, except he’s seen enough of the world they live in now to know thinking of them as people only makes everything harder, and he’s not even the one in charge of most of the killing.

“I know. I just don’t like it when you say it like that. Makes them sound like monsters.” Liam hugs his knees to his chest, but Zayn refuses to let him have this. It won’t do him any good, even if he knows exactly what he’s thinking of right now and how much easier it would be to accept if they could believe there’s still something human left in the ones that turn.

“I know, babe, but they’re still not who they were. They’re not what humans should be,” he says as gently as he can, reaching out to pat his knee. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I’ll stay up and watch over the door and him, you need to get at least an hour or two, yeah?”

Liam nods, already drifting into sleep. He rests his chin on his knees, still hugging them tightly, and he sighs deeply.

“Wake me up if anything happens, yeah?”

“Will do, now keep those eyes closed and count sheep, come on.” Zayn nudges his knee, giving him a small smile that Liam returns before he finally shuts his eyes.

It has been a really long time since any of the two of them got any sleep, so maybe Zayn does pass out for a little while at some point, and Liam definitely sleeps for longer than an hour, though he’s not really sure because it’s impossible to tell time. All Zayn knows is he’s staring at Harry’s impossibly longs limbs and how intricately wrapped around him they get, and then the next moment he blinks awake to find him sitting across from him.

“Hey. The sun’s out.” Harry’s voice is low and raspy in the mornings, and Zayn doesn’t know why his brain seems to be storing that information as something really important that he needs to always remember. “Your friend’s still asleep.”

Zayn gets to his feet, stretching out and feeling each of his bones make a cracking noise. He’s not athletic enough to be living this kind of life where they spend most of their time running or sleeping in strange positions, and his body likes to constantly remind him of that. It is morning indeed, and they should probably go outside and see if they can make it somewhere that has anything edible, and then try to contact Harry’s friends again. But Liam’s asleep, and Harry’s sitting there with his face and his voice and Zayn thinks maybe he can give himself an extra five minutes of having him all to himself and pretending they’re not both on the verge of death at all times.

“So, uh. You can get in touch with your friends whenever with that thing?” He asks as he sits back down, a little closer to Harry, gesturing towards his walkie talkie.

“Sort of,” Harry says as he takes it out, handing it to Zayn. “It doesn’t work if we’re too far away. We stole them from somewhere, but they don’t have a really big range or something, I’m not sure. I don’t really understand these things, I just know it works when we’re within the same area of the city, and then if we go further we lose signal or whatever. But I doubt my friends have gone that far without me.”

“No, I’m sure they’re still around.” Zayn doesn’t know why it’s so important to him that Harry stays hopeful when that’s the one thing he’s been fighting against this whole time, but it is and he’s willing to say whatever it is he needs to hear to stay exactly like he is. “So, uh, you’ve been friends with them for long?”

“Yeah, since forever.” Harry’s entire face lights up, and Zayn can’t stop staring at him. “We met in high school, we, uh. Yeah. We were in a team together.”

From the deep shade of red Harry’s face suddenly turns to, Zayn can tell he needs to know more about this team.

“What sort of team?”

“We, uh. Well. I wanted to get into the football team, at first, but the thing was, I kind of. You know. Sucked at it. And then that same day on the field there were tryouts for something else, and you’re gonna laugh, but cheerleading’s actually a professional sport.”

“I wasn’t gonna laugh, mate.” Zayn is however smirking, and there’s tons of mental images he wishes he wasn’t having right now.

“Thanks. Lots of people laugh. I don’t know why, it was fun and we had to work really hard. Lou wasn’t all that good, she’s really good with a football, but they wouldn’t take girls in the team. And I think Niall only joined to be near her, but a lot less people mocked them because they’re girls, you know.”

Harry shrugs, and when he speaks, it’s as if the world he’s describing wasn’t a billion light years away, but only the three or four that have passed since he left high school. Like their normal lives weren’t entirely torn apart, just put on hold. Maybe Zayn’s reading too much into a five minute conversation. Maybe they’ve been on their own for too long.

“What time is it?” Liam suddenly asks from his corner, and Zayn can’t help but smile at him fondly when he sees him rubbing his eyes. He looks rested, and that’s a first in a very long time.

“Time to get out of here, I’d say,” Harry replies, gesturing towards the door and all the furniture Liam piled up against it the night before that’s been pushed aside almost entirely now. “If we don’t get moving now, we’re as good as dead I’d say.”

“That’s an awfully calm way to say such a thing.” Liam raises an eyebrow, but he’s already jumped to his feet and seems ready to go. “Alright then. Let’s get out of here and see if we can find something to eat.”

Getting out isn’t easy, but they’ve had harder fights, and after beating the first ones out of the way, the rest tend to stay away from them for a few minutes, as if they’re sizing them up now that they know they’re able to put up a fight. They clearly don’t have the ability to remember, or they’d know they’re the same people who killed at least five of them the night before.

The streets aren’t as crowded as they expected, so it’s not quite as terrible to get through them. It becomes rather obvious as soon as they’re outside that Liam’s hopes that Harry would be a useful addition to their pack don’t quite match up with the reality. Even when they make it to an empty alley where they can stop running and catch their breath, Harry manages to stumble and fall. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been killed yet, with how clumsy he is.

“I’m really sorry, my legs are sometimes too long for me to handle.” He apologizes so sincerely it’s hard to be mad at him, but Zayn glances back at Liam and he can read him like a book at this point, so he knows he’s thinking maybe bringing him along wasn’t the smartest idea. Zayn, on the other hand, is sure it was the best thing they could’ve done now, because obviously Harry needs them, and if they’d left him behind, then they would’ve had to carry that on the back of their minds and Zayn doesn’t think he could have borne it.

It’s not long until they’ve locked themselves up in a house that looks mostly empty, and Zayn goes straight for the cabinets over the kitchen’s countertop. It’s almost impossible to find food in places like that, but sometimes they get lucky and the zombies haven’t destroyed everything. There’s a few cans, and at the very bottom he finds a bag of flour.

“Perfect. Entirely useless.” He drops the bag in favor of examining the cans and trying to find something to open them with.

“I used to work in a bakery,” Harry says as he picks up the bag of flour, staring at it melancholically, and it’s the first time Zayn’s seen him actually show awareness of how far away from their normal lives they’ve drifted. “But then I got fired because Lou and Niall would come in and eat everything.”

Oh. Of course that’s what he’s sad about.

“Come on, let’s go upstairs and see if there’s anything else we can use.” Liam’s at the kitchen door, urging them on, so Zayn throws the cans in the backpack he’s been carrying around and they go after him. They’re climbing up the stairs quickly because there’s noise from below that tells him the resistance they put up on the door won’t hold up much longer, when Liam comes to a sudden stop. It happens too fast -it always does. He doesn’t even get to see the zombie coming towards him before Liam’s got his gun out and he’s shot him dead, aiming straight to the head.

“Fuck,” Harry says quietly behind him, and Zayn doesn’t dare turn around, because he fears what he might find in Harry’s eyes. Every single time they run into one of them, Zayn avoids looking at them until Liam’s shot them dead, because he’s afraid it might be someone they recognize, and he knows exactly how he’d react if that happened, because it did once, and it wasn’t pretty. “He just shot him.”

Zayn nods slowly, as they watch Liam climb up to the top of the stairs and move the body away, keeping his gun pressed against his chest while he checks the rooms.

“We don’t use guns. We never had them, so we just, uh. Bats, they’re all we have, so we can’t really kill them.”

He speaks so slowly it’s easy to think he’s calm, but he’s pressed up against Zayn’s back and he can feel his heart racing.

“Swatting them away doesn’t really work. They keep coming if you don’t kill them. It’s better like this, for them too. That way they can actually be dead instead of being- this.” Zayn can’t even look at the body as he follows Liam when he gestures for them to keep walking. He doesn’t like any of this, but he knows it’s the right way to do things.

“But what if they could get better?” Harry shuts the door behind them once they’re all in the same room, and both Liam and Zayn stare at him. It doesn’t work like that. They know it doesn’t, yet it feels like a punch in the gut to be hearing it.

“They can’t.”

“You don’t know that,” Harry fires back, putting his hands on his hips.

It’s not something they think about. They don’t discuss it, because if that’s true, if there really is such a thing as a cure, then they haven’t been putting people out of their miseries. They’ve been murdering them.

“Even if there was, in the future, at some point, something that could help them, I don’t think it could cure them. They’re already dead. If you make them stop being zombies, they’ll be just dead people.” Liam speaks slow and sternly, while he keeps moving around the room, checking for other entrances, not really looking at Harry. “And like this, they only suffer and lose all their dignity, besides becoming a danger to the few of us that have managed to survive. It’s the best thing we can do. If someone gets bit, you shoot them, they turn, you shoot them again. The end. It’s for everyone’s sake.”

Harry’s got his arms folded over his chest, and he looks like he’s debating whether it’s worth it to keep on arguing about it, when Zayn’s stomach makes an embarrassingly loud noise.

“Sorry. There’s no one here we need to decide whether to shoot or not, so can we maybe save this for later and eat now, before I pass out?” He asks sheepishly, and it must be obvious how badly he needs to put something in his belly because they both take deep breaths as if to let go of the tension on their shoulders and they all sit down and start opening the cans.

They don’t actually go back to the topic until it’s well past midnight, and they’ve moved to a different house. Zayn’s had a few hours of sleep, almost three, and he wakes up to find Harry sitting up on his own with Liam fast asleep by his side.

“Hey,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes. With only the moonlight shining down on his face, Harry looks younger, even more when he smiles down at Zayn.

“Hello, sleeping beauty. How was your nap?” He asks, reaching over to poke Zayn’s face. It’s a little unsettling, how eternally cheerful Harry appears to be, but Zayn’s starting to think it’s all a bit of an act, a way to keep everyone around him from being consumed by despair at the hopelessness of the situation. Either that, or he really doesn’t think it’s hopeless, which means he’s gonna get crushed by reality sooner or later, and Zayn doesn’t want to be around when that happens. He can’t even picture Harry without that wide grin on his face.

“Alright, yeah.” Zayn sits up, stretching out his arms and back before moving closer to him. Liam snores and rolls over so he’s sleeping on his back, and Zayn smiles at how peaceful he looks. “He’s been through a lot, you know. Most of us have been, but he’s had it rougher than most I think, and he has his reasons to feel so strongly about the transformation and all.”

“Oh?” Harry asks, leaning forward until he’s so close Zayn wouldn’t have to move much to feel his breath on his skin. He’s not sure why he’s thinking of that, but now that it came to his mind, he can’t stop mentally measuring the distance between his body and Harry’s.

“His parents, they, uh. They were bit back when it hadn’t spread much, and no one knew exactly what happened or if it could be stopped, so he stayed with them and tried to nurse them back to health while they, you know. Transitioned. And it’s a painful process, nasty, and he tried so hard to make them get better, but there was nothing to be done. He wanted to save them so much, but then they were fully transformed and they tried to attack one of his sisters and he had to do something drastic.”

“That’s horrible.” Harry’s eyes have gone wide open, and Zayn’s always thought everyone would have stories as awful like that one, but in Harry’s shock he sees maybe some have had it easier than others. “What about his sisters?”

“They escaped, but we don’t know what happened to them. Even though he’d saved them, they didn’t want to talk to Liam after- well. They watched him shoot his parents. It wasn’t easy for anyone.”

“That is truly terrible, I had no idea.” Harry rubs the back of his neck, glancing back at Liam in obvious distress. “But I don’t think it’s that crazy, you know. To think there might be a cure. At least for the ones that haven’t died.”

“It’s been almost a month, and everything keeps just getting worse. Even if there was a way to fix things, I’m not sure how it would be possible to like, do research or whatever, when everything’s destroyed.”

“Not everything’s destroyed.” There’s this air of conspiracy Harry gets that makes Zayn very uneasy. He told Liam they could trust him, and he doesn’t want to be wrong. “I mean, it can’t be. There must be, I don’t know, underground facilities or something. The government can’t have been that overwhelmed as to not think of ways to keep trying to help the people.”

Zayn can’t help but snort a little bitterly at that.

“Yeah, because that’s what governments do. Help people.”

Harry gives him the most disbelieving look, raising both his eyebrows, and Zayn’s never met such an innocent person in his life. Whatever suspicions he had two seconds ago have disappeared again, because he’s starting to think Harry must be short for Harmless or something like that.

“You can never say never. Justin Bieber said so.” Harry’s face is so serious for a moment Zayn worries he might be actually quoting him as if he was some serious philosopher, but after a moment it breaks into his usual grin. “I’m kidding. The Fray said it first. But I understand. And staying safe is the most important thing, it’s not like I’m against Liam saving our asses time after time.”

“He has a tendency to do that, yeah.” Zayn smiles, thankful Harry seems to have got the idea that maybe he shouldn’t discuss this around Liam. When he looks back at him, there’s a strange look on his face for a fleeting moment, and it switches to his usual smile so fast he’s not sure it was real. But for a second, it almost looked like Harry was, well, /jealous/, and Zayn’s heart skips a beat at the idea.

It’s ridiculous. They’re fighting to stay alive, and he’s having /feelings/ because a boy smiles at him. He expected more from himself, honestly, and yet there he is, blushing because Harry shares his can of beans with him. He would slap himself out of it if he could find a moment to be on his own, but now that there’s three of them, there’s hardly ever a moment in which there’s two of them sleeping while the other’s awake, and other than that they never ever split because it’s too dangerous.

Maybe if it was just him and Liam it wouldn’t be such a risk, but they’ve quickly learned Harry cannot be left on his own at all. He’s far too careless, and he’s the clumsiest human being alive. The next morning, as he sees him stumble as they run from a hoard of zombies, Zayn figures his friends must be aces at survival to have kept him from getting bitten all this time.

Liam helps him up and Zayn’s pretty sure he considers just carrying him on his back for a moment, but there’s too many of them and they’re quite literally stepping on their toes. They left the house they’d locked themselves in after Harry’s walkie talkie had started bleeping, letting him know his friends were nearby, to see if they could get better signal, but the moment they’d set foot on the streets, a bunch of zombies had thrown themselves at them.

They’re always on the run, and it’s not a great way to live, but they don’t know what else to do. It’s not as if they can stay locked inside a safe place and run outside every now and then for food, because most places have been raided and emptied, so it’s hard enough to find anywhere that’s got enough to get them through two or three days. To Zayn, it feels like they’re just delaying the inevitable, but he’d rather do that than give up and sit on the floor until death is upon him.

There’s an open store in front of them, and they barely make it to the door, the zombies tugging at their clothes. Once they’ve closed the door, Zayn turns around to check on Harry and he finds him shirtless, his shirt ripped in half in his hands.

“They nearly get you,” he says breathless, using all of his willpower to fight his instinct to throw himself at him and hug him because for a single second there he saw them with their hands on him and he was sure they’d sunk their teeth on him. He was sure they’d lost him. And it’s ridiculous because he’s been with them for only a day and a half or so, yet Zayn’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest when he thought of losing Harry.

“For a moment I thought they had, but I guess they just really hated my shirt.” Harry shrugs, and most of the time it’s endearing how fine he is with everything, but right now, Zayn’s freaking out and he can’t stand to watch him act like nothing just happened.

“You could’ve died, Harry.” He tries to stop his voice from quivering but he can’t, and now even Liam’s turned to watch them. This is not the time to be making a scene, not when they should be making sure all entrances are safely locked, but he needs to make sure Harry is aware of this. Even though he doesn’t want to, a part of him needs to let him know he needs him to stay alive because even though he barely knows him, he already can’t afford to lose him.

Harry’s gone quiet, and Liam’s still standing behind him at the door, staring at them intensely. When Harry opens his mouth, Liam beats him to it, slowly walking up to him. The door’s locked and Zayn quickly managed to push up a shelf against it, but it won’t hold up much longer, yet Liam doesn’t seem to be concerned about it.

"Harry. I’m really sorry, Harry.” He’s gone all cold and Zayn’s only heard him sound like this once before so he freezes on the spot because he remembers exactly what happened that time. He was sure he’d seen a zombie bite him. “There’s, uh. In your back.”

Harry tries to reach it, and he shifts a little while touching his back, so Zayn sees it. The bite.

“Fuck,” he breathes.

Liam’s already got his gun out.

“Fuck, wait, Liam. Don’t, wait.” He starts mumbling, and Harry’s fingers have finally reached the wound that’s only bleeding a little because it’s not that deep, but they know it doesn’t need to be deep. Just a scratch is enough. It won’t take long, just a couple of hours, and then- then he’ll be gone. Zayn’s world is crumbling around him and he doesn’t know what to do because he’s only seen this with his own eyes once before, and he’s still recovering from it. He can’t watch Harry transform. He definitely can’t watch Harry get shot.

“I’m really sorry, Harry, but you know it’s for the best. If I don’t do it now, I’ll have to do it in a couple of hours, and this is better. You get to die as you, instead of- one of those things.” Liam gestures towards the door with the gun, where there’s still noises coming from, and Zayn doesn’t know how long they have until the zombies manage to break in, but it’s not much. Time is always running out for them.

“No, Liam, it’s fine, you don’t need to do this,” Harry says hurriedly, taking a step back, because now Liam’s pointing his gun at him and he’s in a clear state of panic, his voice in a higher pitch than usual and his eyes open wide. “It’s a scratch. It’s fine, I’m not gonna- it’s not gonna happen, Liam, please.”

Zayn can see Liam’s eyes tearing up, but he’s also resolute, and Zayn himself doesn’t have it in him to stop him because he knows what it’s like. He’s seen them turn. He knows this is a far better way to go, and he hopes there’s someone around to do this for him if he ever gets bitten.

“Zayn?” Harry’s voice is a low whine, and he’s turned to him. Zayn has to look away.

The banging on the door has gotten louder, and they need to either pile more stuff up against it, or run through the backdoor and find a different place. But they can’t take Harry with them. They haven’t seen it happen enough to see a pattern and be sure it really will take him hours. It might take him minutes for all they know, and they can’t be on the run and suddenly have him turn. It needs to be dealt with now, and Zayn can’t do anything but hide his face in his hands when he hears Liam click the safety off. The gunshot will be next, and then it will all be over.

“Liam,” Harry cries out, “wait, Liam. I’m immune. Look, I’ve been bitten before, yeah? Here. And I’m still me, yeah? I swear, I’m not shitting around.”

There’s absolute terror in his voice, and Zayn finally dares open his eyes again when there’s no gunshot, not yet. Harry’s pulled his pants down, and his legs are covered in bite marks. There’s at least six of them, some of them very deep, but they all look very much like zombie bites. There’s tears running down his face, and he’s staring at Liam pleadingly.

“How?” Liam asks, the gun still pointed at Harry’s forehead. It’s barely a whisper, but Zayn thinks he can hear the tiniest relief in his voice, but mostly desperation. “How can you be immune? How can that happen? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says slowly, still eyeing him carefully as Liam aims the gun to the floor. He hasn’t put it away yet, but it’s a start. “I honestly have no idea, but when the virus started spreading, I got bit right away because as you may have noticed I’m not the best at this whole surviving thing, and it just, it didn’t do anything to me. I was with Niall and Louis at the time and we figured maybe I hadn’t caught the virus yet, but then a couple of days went by and I got bit again and nothing happened. And I kind of got really careless then because I wanted to see if it was a thing or if I’d just been lucky, because if it was a thing, then it felt like a really big thing.”

“It looks like you’ve been bit a lot.” Liam states as if it wasn’t the biggest understatement of the century, and Harry stares down at his naked legs and sighs.

“I needed to know if I really was immune, and like I said, I’m really bad at this being chased thing. I’m not fast enough, and I tend to get caught in my own legs and fall down a lot.” He looks back and forth between Zayn and Liam, clearly begging for them to believe him. “And then, then Louis thought maybe that could be of help. We were going to a hospital, a government thing where a friend of mine works, to see if they can do something with it. See why I’m immune and use it to help other people.”

It makes so much more sense now, everything about Harry, but Zayn can’t quite focus on that. The feeling of dread in his stomach when he saw Liam point his gun at Harry is still there, even though it looks like he’s safe now, and there’s too much he still doesn’t understand, like why he cares so much about this guy he met at most forty eight hours ago, and why he never said anything when this is so incredibly big.

“I didn’t know if I could trust you,” Harry says, staring at Zayn as if he’s just read his mind. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, I know I should have said something, but it’s a big deal and not everyone understands or even believes me so I thought it’d be easier if I just kept quiet until I got back to my friends.”

“So you were just gonna drop us when you found them and we wouldn’t have ever known?” Like most things that have gone through his head since Harry showed up, it’s a stupid thought to be having, but Zayn can’t help feeling hurt that he was planning on leaving them even when that was the original idea.

“No, but I- I don’t know.” Harry sighs, looking defeated, and there’s a loud bang on the door that startles them all.

“Get your pants up and let’s get out of here, if you’re really not planning on turning anytime soon.” Liam orders, though he still doesn’t put his gun away, and Zayn wants to believe it’s because there’s zombies two steps away that are probably gonna break in in about three seconds, but he knows that’s not the reason. “Let’s get to somewhere safer, alright?”

Running takes up all of Zayn’s concentration so he doesn’t really get to ponder about Harry until they sneak into a house and lock themselves up. Liam immediately drags him to the bathroom, leaving Harry in the bedroom they chose to stay in for the night.

It’s stopped being strange, the whole intruding in other people’s houses thing, especially because they’re empty and they always look like they’ve been sacked and destroyed enough to make them into some sort of battle zone that no longer feels like someone else’s home. Yet even now, sometimes, Zayn still finds himself looking around the place and feeling his heart clench because there’s still always signs someone used to live there. Someone who left a tube of lipstick on the bathroom sink, someone who had some severe allergies judging the meds lined up on the cabinet. Someone who’s probably dead and roaming the streets turned into a killing machine now.

“Hey,” Liam says as he puts a hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of it. “I don’t know if I’m buying the immunity story, but he does look a little too healthy for someone who’s been bitten, so I can’t really bring myself to shoot him either.”

It’s funny how Liam keeps talking about shooting people as if it’s something he’s learned to do without hesitating. As if he hasn’t shed tears every single time he’s had to point his gun at someone who was still a person but wouldn’t be for much longer. As if Zayn doesn’t know exactly how many times he’s wished the gun would backfire so he could be done with all of this.

“I don’t know, it sounds too good to be true, but as long as he’s not giving any signs of turning, I think maybe we can give him the benefit of doubt.”

“So you wanna keep him around.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t start turning out of nowhere. But even as clumsy as he is, he’s proven to be kinda good swinging that bat around so he’s still useful.” Which is more than Zayn brings to the group already, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it because Liam will swat him in the head if he gets self deprecating under these circumstances. He can’t say why he wants Harry to stay so badly, because that’s also a thing Liam will swat him in the head for, hearing him say he /likes/ a boy. Now. In the middle of the apocalypse, Zayn likes a boy.

“Fine. I figured you’d say that. I wouldn’t have been able to kick him to the curb either, I guess, so we’ll just have to be extra careful.”

Zayn doesn’t ask, but he knows Liam doesn’t mean just with Harry. He means they have to be careful enough to not get their hopes up about this cure business, because it’s not likely to be true, and hope is their worst enemy at a time like this. Staying alive for the sake of staying alive is easier than staying alive while fighting to save a world that’s been doomed since the outbreak.

When they go back to the room, they hear Harry talking animatedly to his little device, and they stop dead on their tracks before opening the door.

“I had to tell them, but it’s alright, they’re good guys. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not gonna happen. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

“God, you’re such an idiot,” the voice on the other end of the line is different, so Zayn figures it’s Louis he’s talking to. “But whatever, okay, we’re clearly not far from where you are if this thing is transmitting so clearly, so maybe we’ll find you tomorrow and you can get rid of them.”

“I don’t wanna get rid of them,” Harry replies quietly. “Can’t we take them with us?”

“No” the voice shrieks out, but there’s another one that yells a very loud “Yes!” at the same time. “I don’t know. We’ll see. I wanna judge them myself.”

“Fine.” Harry agrees, and Zayn decides it’s time to stop eavesdropping so he opens the door, still trying to be quiet. “I’ll ring you in a bit to let you know where we are so we can figure out where to meet, alright?”

“Yeah, okay. Take care, dumbass.”

It’s not easy, finding Louis and Niall, especially since all they have is Louis’s description of the place and he doesn’t seem to be very good at giving directions, since they end up wandering about for over half an hour, while having to fight zombies every step of the way.

The worst part as far as Zayn is concerned though, is the horrible feeling that’s crawled up his chest and made a nest for itself in his heart. It’s fear, mostly, fear of a number of things. Fear they might have trusted Harry too easily, that he might have fallen for him too hard and too fast and that it might be their downfall how easily he got lost in his smile. Fear that Harry’s friends might want to leave them behind, and right now, he’s pretty sure Liam wouldn’t have a problem with going back to being by themselves, and Zayn, well. He wouldn’t have much to say against it unless he admitted out loud he feels he needs to keep Harry by his side because he likes him more than he’s ever liked anyone else and he needs to hold on to the very tiny glimmer of hope he’s given him if he wants to keep his sanity.

The way Liam keeps glancing back at Harry every now and then doesn’t exactly make him any less scared. He can’t tell if he’s checking on him to make sure he’s alright, or if he doesn’t trust him anymore so he’s constantly making sure he hasn’t run off, or changed.

Eventually, they get to a building that looks very similar to the one Louis described. It’s not quite a building and more of a work in progress, but it looks like there’s barricades everywhere, and they’ve only just made it to what appears to have been an entrance when someone chists at them.

From behind a barricade, a girl with piercing blue eyes  shows up and makes just enough room for them to sneak in, punching a zombie in the face to keep them away while Harry gets all of himself inside. She slips right back in, putting the barricade back in place. As soon as it’s safe, she throws herself at Harry, almost knocking him down.

“You absolute wanker,” the tone of her voice, choked up and emotional, does not match with the words coming out of her mouth at all, but Harry doesn’t seem to mind. He just tightens his grip on her waist, his face buried in her neck. “You gigantic dumbass, could’ve gotten your idiotic self killed, Harold, you are aware of that, aren’t you?”

None of the insults have any heat behind them, couldn’t if she wanted them to, not with the way she’s still hanging off him, her tiny figure wrapped around him like he might disappear if she lets go of him.

“Let go of him, will ya,” Niall’s voice comes from the dark, and even without getting to see her Zayn can already recognize that undoubtedly Irish accent. A girl with very long hair and a baseball cap steps forward, helping them untangle only to throw her arms around Harry once Louis’s let go. “Missed you, you dickhead. Don’t run off on us again, alright?”

Harry frowns at each name they call him and Zayn wishes he could focus on anything but how endearing his face when he’s pretending to be offended is, but he really can’t.

Louis’s eyes stay on them while Niall shows them the way to the tiny room they’ve locked themselves up, and Zayn knows they’re being judged thoroughly. He isn’t so sure they’ll pass the test, especially considering how useless he’s proven to be so far, so he does his best to stay quiet and not make a fool of himself. It only takes Liam about two seconds of being sat in that room before he’s chatting away with Niall and making her laugh so loud Zayn thinks every zombie in the city knows they’re there, but from the soft look Louis gets when she looks at them, he thinks that might at least work in Liam’s favour. He’s gonna have to find something he can do to convince Louis he’s worth keeping around.

They spend all afternoon just sitting there while Harry tells them all about what happened, skipping out on bits and pieces like his late night conversations with Zayn, and that not important at all apart where Liam wanted to shoot him. Niall laughs and jokes, whereas Louis is still eyeing them carefully, her guard as as up as possible.

Later, by the time the sun’s set down, only Zayn and Louis are left awake. Liam’s semi awake, trying his hardest to keep his eyes open, but Harry and Niall have both fallen asleep on his lap so it must be getting far too difficult to stay awake with them all cuddled up against him like that. It was a matter of chance, really, because Zayn wouldn’t in a million years have planned to stay alone with Louis who’s done nothing but glare at him since they first locked eyes, yet here they are now and Louis is still staring at him insistently.

“So he told you.” She only speaks when Liam’s eyes finally stay shut for more than a few seconds, and Zayn nods shortly. After the few hours they’ve spent together, he’s pretty sure Louis hates him for having been around Harry even though he probably wouldn’t have ever made it back to them if it hadn’t been for him and Liam. He gets it though, feeling possessive over Harry comes naturally even to him. “You know we don’t actually know about the cure thing, if it’s something that can happen.”

“I know. I mean, the way Harry put it, it sounded like it was a given, but I figured it wasn’t all that simple.”

Louis takes a deep breath, and when she looks back up at him, she suddenly looks a lot less intimidating, and way more scared.

“It’s not simple at all. The only thing we know for sure right now is that Harry’s been immune so far. We don’t know if the hospital is still running, or if they will be able to get anything out of him that can be useful for other people, or even if he might not end up turning out of the blue one of these days. We literally know nothing.”

“I thought… Well, I thought you’d be more optimistic. Since you’re going through all of this to get him there, and he sounded so sure about all of it.”

“I can’t tell him all this, can I?” Louis sounds angry, and very, very frustrated. Zayn thinks it might be at him, but it’s also a little bit at herself. “When we first found out, I didn’t know what to say to him. The future right now looks pretty bleak for all of us, but can you even imagine what it must have looked like for him when he understood what this meant?”

There’s a tinge of despair in her voice that Zayn doesn’t really get.

"How’s being immune a bad thing?”

“We’re all going to die at some point. Unless he dies first, which doesn’t seem likely considering a single scratch from any of the creatures that are constantly stepping on our toes would do it for any of the rest of us, he’s literally destined to shoot the last one of us to turn. He’ll watch us all die at the hands of these monsters, one by one, and then when there’s only one person left by his side, he’ll be forced to be the one that ends with their life or leave them to their fate as, you know. A zombie.”

Her voice doesn’t crack, not even once, and still Zayn can feel the panic as she speaks. All this time, even in the darkest moments, Zayn hadn’t thought of how very minuscule the chances of living more than a couple years longer are. With all the running and starving, the time they’ve had so far has been an inch less of a miracle. It only takes a scratch, a door torn down, a barricade that doesn’t hold up, and they’re gone.

The image of Harry having to shoot one of them is bad enough, but when he thinks of what comes after that, Harry being left alone in this pathetic excuse for a world they have now, he feels like screaming into the dark of the night.

“It’s unfair.” It’s all he can manage to say, yet Louis nods vehemently, like that’s exactly what she’s thinking as well.

“I don’t think Harry thought of it like that. He would’ve, if he’d had more time to think it over, but I thought of the cure thing and sprung it on him without really giving it much thought, because it felt like the right thing, you know? And they both held on to it so quickly that I figured it wouldn’t hurt them to have a little hope.”

Louis is staring at Niall’s sleeping figure now, and she sighs softly, running her fingers through her hair to get it off her face before turning back to Zayn.

“I know hope can be the worst enemy one could have at a time like this. But I couldn’t let Harry go around counting the days until he had to shoot one of us and be left forever alone wandering these infested streets. And when I told him about my idea, Niall was so thrilled, and she… I hadn’t seen her smile in so long. She lit up instantly, like I’d solved everything just by suggesting the possibility of going to see Nick about this.”

There’s a bit of an eye roll when she mentions that last name, and Zayn can’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“Nick’s your doctor friend?”

“Sorta,” now the eye roll is far more evident, and Louis even huffs a little. “He’s Harry’s friend. I can barely put up with him, but he works at some government facility thing so I figured if anyone can help, it’s him. We don’t exactly know that many people who aren’t, you know. Dead. Or very far away.”

“What about your families?” The question rolls off Zayn’s lips before he has time to stop himself, and for a moment he fears Louis might smack him on the head for being so tactless.

“I don’t really know about mine.” She shrugs her shoulders, playing with the end of her messy ponytail and staring at it.  “But if what they said about it not having spread to America is true, then they should be alright, ‘cause they were out there on a holiday with Harry’s fam too.”

She doesn’t mention Niall’s, and Zayn doesn’t ask. He doesn’t say anything about his or Liam’s either, because it hurts too much to mention, and it’s not like he knows for sure about his either. They might be alright. No one really knows how far the virus has gone, not since they cut off communications, so maybe they’re fine. Maybe there’s still somewhere they can run to, if the cure is real.

“So you don’t think there’s a cure.”

“I don’t know if there’s a cure. I want to believe there is, but I honestly don’t know for certain.”

“Alright.”

They stay in silence for a long while, nothing but their breathing and the noises from the zombies trying to break in in the silence of the night.

“You like him, don’t you?” Louis asks, and Zayn looks up expecting to find her to be teasing, but she’s very serious.

“Yeah. I really do.” He says, and it doesn’t feel quite like the puppy love he thought it was.

“Terrible, terrible timing, but I guess I’m sort of glad he’s got someone else looking after him that’s kinda interested in his well being.”

It’s quite impressive, how Louis keeps managing to make it sound like she’s not really invested in keeping Harry alive when it’s written all over her face how terribly much she cares about him being safe and well.

“I am. And I’m glad you’ve trusted us enough to let us in here with you. If you let us come along with you, I promise we’ll do our best to help you get to the doctor, and not just because this whole miracle cure thing is starting to sound more tempting by the minute.”

“I know. I don’t think I could’ve talked Harry into leaving you guys behind anyway.” Louis shrugs again, and Zayn smiles to himself, gaze drifting towards the lanky boy that despite being profoundly asleep is starting to untangle himself from Liam’s arms to go to his usual starfish position.

“Always taking up so much space,” Louis mutters, but it sounds more fond than anything. “That’s Harry for you. Making himself at home in every corner he sees.”

“Useful to skill to have these days. I can’t seem to sleep anywhere.”

“Me neither.”

She doesn’t say it, but Zayn hopes she might be thinking the same thing as him as they watch their friend sleep peacefully.

They might not get to sleep, but at least now they have each other for every long night they have left.

 

It takes them five whole days to make their way to the place Harry thinks Nick works at. It’s five very long days, because now that they’re actually headed somewhere and with some urgency to get there, they can’t keep taking detours to look for food, so they only eat when they stumble upon abandoned stores, and they only sleep when they can’t take another step without falling down.

This also means it’s five days of being on the verge of death even more than usual, because not being properly rested means Harry isn’t the only one lacking coordination, and Zayn’s pretty sure if it wasn’t for Liam and Louis they’d all be dead by now. Louis happens to be very agile and quite skillful, and though they crash at first, her and Liam seem to find a way around their being leaders dilemma and by day three, they get on better than any of them could have expected.

“I was honestly starting to think they’d end up pushing one another into the next zombie hoard that came at us, and then I don’t know who would have saved our asses,” says Harry as he plops down next to Zayn, handing him half a banana in a pretty bad shape. They found a grocery shop with some vegetables in the backroom, and they locked themselves up in it for the night, leaving Harry to test out if there was anything edible. It turned out to be a horrible idea because as far as Harry’s concerned, everything that was once part of a plant is edible forever.

“I know, I hadn’t ever seen Liam get so furious at someone so fast as he did at Louis after the first, what was it, two hours we’d all spent together?” Zayn replies, staring at Liam and Louis who are discussing something animatedly in a corner, trying to keep it low for the sake of Niall, who’s been sleeping for about an hour, but failing rather spectacularly. He can’t tell if they’re getting louder because they’re excited or pissed off, but at least neither of them is trying to hit the other, so he’ll take it.

“Well, I’ve seen Louis try to rip off the scalp of people after talking to them for two seconds, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. This, though, this is rather shocking. Earlier, when we were deciding whether to stay here or not, Louis actually asked Liam what he thought. She asked him, and then listened to what he said, and they shared opinions. That’s never happened before.” Harry nods very seriously, chewing thoughtfully on his banana afterwards.

Zayn eyes his suspiciously, trying to decide whether he’s hungry enough to risk biting into it. Can people die from eating rotten fruit? He’s not sure, but he doesn’t want to find out. He didn’t come this far to die because of a banana.

“I’m glad they got along, though. It would’ve sucked if they’d kept fighting, I don’t know if we could have all stayed together if they had.”

“I know, I would’ve hated having to choose and stuff,” Harry says casually, finishing off his banana. He hasn’t died yet, but then again, he’s immune to zombie bites, so maybe he’s immune to this as well. Zayn hands him his half and Harry sighs before biting it, like he’s disappointed in him for not taking the risk. “You know, bananas are very nutritious. Plus it’s all I could find in here, so you really should give them a shot.”

Zayn wants to chuckle and say no kindly, but Harry leans against him and puts his head on his shoulder, which makes Zayn’s brain shut down instantly. Terrible timing, says Louis’s voice in his head. Terrible indeed.

“I’m really glad I run into you. And that you grabbed me by the hand and saved my life. And that you came with me here.” Harry speaks very softly, and Zayn knows two seconds ago he was hearing Liam and Louis arguing over something but now he can’t hear anything over the sound of his own heart beating very, very fast. “You’re like, I don’t know. A ray of sunshine in the shitstorm that life’s turned into.”

“Me too,” Zayn replies, not knowing what else to say. Harry’s surely talking about him and Liam. All of them, becoming friends. It’s been a silver lining he wouldn’t have ever expected. Falling stupidly in love with someone he’s known for such a short amount of time, that’s something he’s not sure qualifies as a silver lining just yet. Sometimes it feels like the best thing that could have happened to him, when he’s watching Harry laugh when Niall’s messing up his hair and he has to shake it back into place. Then sometimes he’s lying awake at night, when he’s supposed to be sleeping, and all he can think about is how much more it’s all gonna hurt now that he feels like this.

“I’m glad Liam’s here too. He’s a nice guy.” Harry states, and Zayn doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but. But, but, but. He’s making a difference, isn’t he.

“Your friends are cool as well,” he smiles, and when he turns his face to look at Harry, he becomes profoundly aware of how close their noses are. Which means their mouths are pretty close too. There’s zombies trying to beat down their door, and he’s thinking of kissing Harry until he’s breathless. Amazing.

“Some days I wish I’d met you before all this. So we could’ve had a chance, you know.” Harry’s speaking in barely more than a whisper, his eyes fixed on Zayn’s. He doesn’t remember when Harry’s hand found his, but he’s holding it tightly. “But then I think, we still have a shot. Because of the cure. Life can still go back to normal, and we can… I don’t know. Do stuff.”

There’s such hope in his voice, and Zayn wants to close his eyes, look away, run from this place. Anything that isn’t having to sit there and keep staring into Harry’s hopeful eyes, because he doesn’t know if he can do this. If he can pretend to believe in it as blindly as he does.

“Are you asking me out, Harry?” He tries to sound teasing, does his best to smile like he’s not torn between brutally honest and lying blatantly to his face.

“Yes. But, you know. Later. When the world is fixed.”

It’s so innocent, Zayn knows then and there he’s never going to be able to say to Harry any of what Louis told him. He’ll let him have this. He has to. He can’t be the one to break his heart like that. Plus, for all he knows, the cure might actually exist.

“Alright. I don’t know if I can wait that long, but I guess we can try.”

“It won’t be that long. We’re not far from the hospital, and Nick will solve it. You’ll see.”

Zayn nods, and Harry grins at him wide before kissing his cheek and standing up to go meddle between Liam and Louis, who aren’t being quite as civil anymore. Maybe he can let himself have a tiny little bit of hope, for Harry. Just the tiniest, littlest bit.

 

The place Harry takes them to looks abandoned from the outside, and the faint spark of hope Zayn had allowed to grow in his heart dies out the moment he sets eyes on it, but Niall and Harry, as always, seem convinced it’s a facade and they keep walking towards it. There’s not as many zombies as there are everywhere else, and the closer they get, the less there are, which Harry says it’s a sign that someone’s cleaned the place or something. Zayn thinks that makes zero sense because if someone was guarding the place they would’ve shot them by now, but he knows better than saying something like that.

Niall breaks a window with her elbow, and Louis lets out a yelp as she watches her, immediately jumping to her side and managing to yell at her while comforting her at the same time when she predictably starts bleeding. While she rips a piece of her track pants to tie around Niall’s arm, Harry gets in through the window, and they all follow after him. Zayn wishes they would’ve looked first, not only because it’s the most obvious precaution to have when they’re constantly being chased by zombies, but because he’s certain they’re going to enter a deserted place, and the best chance they have of running into Harry’s friend is if his undead self is still roaming the halls, in which case it would’ve been best if he hadn’t been the first one to get inside.

He’s wrong about pretty much everything.

It’s the first time in God knows how long since they’ve seen this many people alive. After what Zayn thinks must have been almost two months of being on their own, suddenly being pushed into a place where there’s people round every corner is a bit of a shock, so they all just sort of stand there for the longest time, staring at the people in white coats that pass them by without sparing them a glance.

After a bit though, people do start to notice them, and it’s no wonder because everyone else seems to be perfectly well dressed, shaved and clean, so they must look like they’ve just come out of living in the jungle, which is coincidentally how they feel as well. They didn’t quite think this through, but it looks like no one’s alarmed enough by their presence to shoot at them like Zayn half expected them to. Instead, a person he assumes is some sort of guard because of his uniform approaches them, politely addressing Harry with a smile and a soft tone.

“May I help you, gentlemen? We don’t get many survivors around here, so we were debating how to proceed. I apologize for the delay, but we have showers and food if you were looking for shelter.”

“We’re not,” Harry says as he shakes his head vigorously, “we’re looking for a friend of mine who works here. If he’s still around.”

“Oh, well, not everyone who worked here has, uh. Made it to this day. But if you tell me his name-”

“Liam?” A cry interrupts them, and Liam turns around so fast he nearly stumbles into Zayn who was standing behind him. “Harry, what- how did you get here?”

A guy Zayn thinks might be almost in his thirties is staring at them with his eyes so wide open it looks like they might fall off his head. Before he can examine him any further though, Liam is throwing himself at him, and Zayn has never been this confused in his entire life.

“Uh.” Harry next to him is practically gaping like a fish out of water. “That’s, uh. That’s Nick. What, uh. Liam?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Zayn manages to say, still staring at how tightly they’re holding onto each other. “I knew Liam was seeing someone before, you know. But he wouldn’t say who it was, and then he never brought it up again, so I didn’t think to ask.”

“I didn’t know Nick was seeing someone,” Harry says frowning heavily. The only one who seems to be finding the whole thing rather delightful is Louis, who seems to be terribly pleased at Harry’s disappointment in his friend.

“If they ever let go of each other, we might find out. You have to admit this is rather brilliant though, except for the part where I was starting to like Liam, and now I’m never gonna be able to speak to him again.” Niall pokes Louis in the stomach a little too hard when she’s done talking, but she doesn’t seem to mind it.

“I don’t understand,” Harry says when Nick and Liam finally stop hanging onto each other and look back at them. “I honestly don’t understand.”

“I don’t either, but I’m so happy you’re here. I thought you’d-” Nick can’t bring himself to finish the sentence, and Liam tightens his grip on his waist. “But you’re all safe and sound. And you brought Liam to me.”

Everyone but Harry bursts into laughter, and Harry frowns even more at them.

“Yes, that is exactly what happened,” Niall says when she can breathe again, holding onto Louis’s shoulder to keep herself upright after doubling over with laughter. “Harry brought us all here. Especially Liam. He needed someone to carry him.”

“That’s not funny, I was the only one who knew where this place was.” Harry sounds so offended Zayn’s glad he managed to keep it down to a snicker, and he smiles at Harry, putting his hand on his shoulder.

“They’re idiots, babe, don’t mind them,” he says, and if he pretends he doesn’t see how Harry relaxes at the pet name, it’s only because now is not the time to be thinking about feelings.

“When you said Nick, you never said… well, I didn’t think it’d be my Nick. I didn’t even know you were a doctor.” Liam looks up at Nick through his eyelashes, and Zayn would swear he’s blushing.

“Yes, well, we were… we didn’t get much time before all this, did we?”

Nothing makes sense anymore, and Zayn has no idea how or when this thing between Liam and Harry’s friend even happened, but from the way Nick’s looking at Liam, he figures he doesn’t need to worry about it. They stare at each other even when they’re talking to the rest of them, and Zayn gets it. They thought they’d lost each other forever, when they were just getting started. He can’t even fathom the idea of losing Harry now, before even getting a chance, so he can see why they can’t keep their hands off one another, though it is weird to see Liam like that.

“Well, I’m awfully sorry to interrupt,” Louis starts saying, sounding like she’s very far from being sorry, “but we should probably all stop making heart eyes to each other and actually explain the thing to Nick? The one we’re here for? Unless we were all just trying to get him and Liam back and you didn’t say because you knew I wouldn’t cooperate in getting Nick Grimshaw laid if my life depended on it.”

“I missed you too, Tomlinson.” Nick rolls his eyes at her, finally looking away from Liam and focusing on Harry instead. “Why did you come here? How did you know this place was still running?”

“We didn’t,” Harry says as he shrugs his shoulders. “Took a chance, and it happened to work out. Didn’t know where else to go, and we, uh. We kind of needed a doctor.”

“Oh.” Nick’s expression turns grim and he eyes them all carefully. “There’s nothing we can do, you know. I’m really sorry, but we’ve tried everything and there’s just, honestly, nothing we can do if it’s happened already.”

“Oh, no, that’s not it, no one’s been bit, that’s not what’s going on.” Harry retorts immediately, and Zayn squeezes his shoulder to get him to lower his voice because they draw enough attention to themselves just by standing there to have him be loud. “Can we go somewhere else?”

“Yeah, come on. We should get you out of those clothes too, you all look like you could use a shower.” Nick nods, and then he turns around to have a word with the same guy who’d come to talk to them at first, keeping it too quiet for them to hear.

“We can trust him, I promise,” Harry says to Zayn in a whisper, gesturing towards Nick. “I’ve known him forever, he’ll help us.”

“I trust him if you trust him.”

“I really do,” Harry gives him a small smile, that turns into a bit of a smirk as he leans closer to whisper in his ear, “babe.”

“Oh shut up,” Zayn says pushing him away softly, and Harry wiggles his eyebrows at him.

Thankfully, Nick’s already gesturing for them to follow him towards an elevator before the conversation turns any more embarrassing, though Zayn makes a mental note to ask him about it later. He feels Harry might be interested to know he felt a bit of a shiver at hearing him say that word, for future reference.

There’s showers, and food, and by the time they sit down with Nick feeling ready to explain everything to him, it’s getting dark outside and they all feel a lot more like human beings again.

“God, I’d forgotten what it was like to smell of something other than trash and sweat,” Niall sighs happily, smelling her armpit while Louis wrinkles her nose at her.

“You’re lucky I love you, you know.” She says, busy with brushing her hair. Zayn’s never seen her with her hair not in a ponytail, and it’s slightly intimidating how gorgeous she looks when she’s cleaned up. Her blue eyes are even more piercing when her face is framed by her dark hair, but she doesn’t seem to be aware of that at all. Niall, who looks just as disheleved as she did before showering and is still wearing the same torn tank top she had on before, can’t take her eyes off her.

“Trust me,” she laughs, reaching out to grab her knee and try to get her to fall towards her until Louis gives in and slumps on her lap, “I know that all too well.”

Zayn figures it’s only fair they’re the ones making everyone feel awkward by starting to make out after behaving all these days and watching him and Harry stare longingly at each other and then Nick and Liam, but he still wishes they could do it quietly, because there’s something about hearing all the kissing while having Harry sitting next to them that’s making him uneasy. Harry’s deep in conversation with Liam about how exactly he met Nick and if he knows why Nick hadn’t said anything about having a boyfriend, and Zayn has to fight back the urge to jump between them and explain to Harry there’s no point in waiting until it’s all sorted when they could be making out right now instead of wasting their time worrying about staying alive and whatnot.

Before he does such thing though, Nick opens the door to the little room they’ve sat them in, and everyone goes quiet.

“So. The thing.” Louis starts saying, and then she falls silent. “Harry. Tell him the thing.”

“Why me?” Harry replies automatically, but everyone stares at him so he sighs and turns back to Nick. “Okay, so the thing is, I did actually get bit.”

Nick lets out a pained shriek, and Harry rushes to finish up his explanation before Nick can start freaking out or whatever it is he’s on the verge of doing.

“I’m not turning. I’m not gonna turn. I got bit like, a week ago. And then before that, I got bit like, five other times. Or was it six? Because I always think that one time we were by the museum-”

“It doesn’t matter, Harry,” Louis cuts in rather abruptly, scoffing at him. “The point is, he’s been bit a thousand times and he hasn’t turned, so we think he might be immune. We don’t know if maybe he’ll still turn if he dies, but at least the bite hasn’t made him turn just yet, so we figured maybe you guys could like, do something with that.”

Nick’s face has gone through so many emotions in the past two minutes it looks like it doesn’t quite know what to look like now so his expression is somewhere between terrified, excited and confused. They’re all looking at him rather intently while he processes what Louis just said, and it’s funny how obvious it is when it all finally settles in and he understands.

“Like a cure.” He says, and his entire face lights up. “We could find a cure.”

 

  
Zayn didn’t mean to fall asleep, but it’s been days, and there’s actual beds in the hospital, so he couldn’t help himself. He wakes up feeling rested in a way he hasn’t felt in months, and for about three seconds, he actually feels content. Then he remembers Harry was lying right next to him when he went to sleep, and now there’s an empty, cold space in the bed where he was, and he’s sleeping all curled up in a corner for no reason at all since there’s no starfish like sleeping boy taking up all the space, and he panics.

“What happened? Where is he?” He asks as he fumbles around until he finds the light switch. Niall and Louis are sleeping on a bed right across from him, curled up in a way he can’t imagine is comfortable at all, but they seem to be rather peaceful, and Liam is nowhere to be found. Brilliant.

He can’t believe he did that. Just fell asleep, and he let them take Harry away, when he doesn’t know what they’re planning to do to him. They said they would run some tests, but he doesn’t know what sort of tests, and neither did Harry, and he might be scared and Zayn isn’t there.

Feeling like the worst human being in history, he gets out of the room and stands in the hallway, unsure of where to go or what to do. Roaming around looking for Harry doesn’t sound like the wisest option, but it does sound like his only one, so he starts walking, peeking through every window and knocking on every door.

It’s only now that he’s fully awake and looking around carefully that he notices how odd the place is. He remembers Harry calling it a government facility, and from what the signs say, it must have actually been a government funded research center before. Now, though, now it truly looks like the first thing that came to his mind when he heard the term. There’s guys in military uniforms everywhere, and they all seem heavily armed. Zayn thinks back to Liam’s gun and Louis’s and Harry’s bats, and he feels suddenly overwhelmed.

Now and then, Zayn stumbles into doctors or nurses, but for the most part, it’s guys in suits or army looking dudes. It’s unsettling, and he wishes he could just find Harry already to make sure he’s alright. Nick’s probably looking after him, but he needs to see him with his own eyes, just to make sure.

He’s already wandered through the first two floors, and he’s ready to walk through the entire third one as well, but on the first door he opens there, he finds Harry.

It feels as if someone’s knocked all their out of his lungs.

There’s a loud beeping coming from a machine that seems to be monitoring his vitals, and there’s more tubes than he’s ever seen before, and they’re all coming out of Harry. He looks someone in a severe condition, and it all appears to be a bit too extreme for them to just be running some tests. He was supposed to look after Harry, and instead he let them take him, and now he’s plugged to a machine that’s doing God knows what to him.

Zayn’s literally about to start unplugging things so he can get them out of here when the door bursts open and someone gasps behind him.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” says a bald man, looking enraged. “How did you even get here? Where’s security?”

Zayn chooses not to point out this is the second time he’s broken into their facility without their security doing much, and he puts his hands up instead.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude, I just- he’s my friend. I wanted to know what was happening to him.”

The man stares at him for a moment, examining him, and he must conclude he’s harmless because he lets out a breath and his shoulders fall.

“Nothing’s happening to your friend,” he starts explaining, and Zayn hopes he’s imagining his condescending tone. “We’re only checking his vitals and his reactions to certain chemicals to make sure there’s nothing wrong with him as a consequence of being bitten. After that, we’ll get some samples of his DNA and he’ll be good to go back to all of you lot.”

For a moment it looks like he’s going to pat Zayn’s head, but he takes a step back and he reconsiders, dropping his hand to his side again.

“Alright. Can I come see him again later?”

“We’ll let you know. Right now, it’s not advisable that he be disturbed, since we had to give him some drugs to get him to sleep so we wouldn’t bother him with all the testing and it could have side effects if he woke up, but I promise we’ll send someone to get you when he’s ready to have visitors.”

It sounds suspicious, and Zayn doesn’t trust this man at all, but it’s not like he can carry along with his plan of throwing Harry over his shoulder and running off into the sunset with him, especially not when he’s clearly on something that’s rendered him useless for what he hopes is only another couple of hours.

He explains this to Niall, Louis and Liam when he gets back to their room, not even bothering to ask Liam where he was when he sees the dopey grin on his face, though that is quickly washed away when he describes Harry’s state.

“But you said heavily drugged,” Louis says, and she’s frowning with her arms folded over her chest, her foot impatiently tapping on the end of the bed. “Doesn’t sound like simply getting someone to sleep through a couple of tests to me.”

“I know, it did look all a bit too much, but what do I know, maybe it was just that, it’s not like I have ever seen someone put to sleep.”

Niall gulps loudly at that from where she’s lying on the bed next to Louis, and she turns her head so her face is hidden against Louis’s thigh.

"That sounds like what they do to dogs when they get too old or too sick. Put to sleep. Put under. That’s not what’s going on here, please don’t say it like that, it’s bad enough as it is.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just- I don’t know. Maybe we should go up there again.” Zayn shrugs his shoulders, and Louis’s already standing up when the door opens up.

Nick’s on the other side, looking far more tired than he had a couple of hours ago, and he looks at them without saying anything while he closes the door behind him and drops himself on Liam’s lap.

“They don’t know for sure if he’s immune.” He says it like it’s the end of the world, and Niall sits up, looking like she’s about to cry.

“So there’s no cure? That’s it, they’re giving up?” Her voice trembles and Louis puts her arm around her, holding her tightly. “That can’t be it, this was, it was supposed to change things. We were supposed to change things.”

“No, it’s not like that.” Nick keeps glancing at the door with every word he says, and Zayn’s starting to feel very uneasy about this. Whatever it is he has to say, he wishes he’d just put it out there so they could deal with it somehow. “It’s, uh. I shouldn’t tell you this. They made me promise I wouldn’t say, and they’re gonna kick me out of here if I do, but we can’t let it happen.”

His eyes are wide open and he sounds pleading, and Zayn wishes he wasn’t already imagining what it is he’s trying to say, but there’s an idea forming in the back of his head and he gets to his feet without really thinking about it, because if it’s like that, then he needs to get out of here, fast.

“They need to make sure he’s immune.” He says slowly, looking up into Nick’s eyes and seeing the dread that confirms it truly is what he thought it was.

“They know the process hasn’t sped up in him because of getting bit yet, but since they don’t know what the virus looks like or how to detect it, there’s only way of knowing it hasn’t affected him at all.”

“Can’t they do whatever it is and just be done with it then? Harry will be fine, we’ll help him get better after whatever, and we might have a cure. We might save everyone. Isn’t that worth putting him through a bit of pain? I’m sure Harry would think it’s worth it.” Niall leans forward, tugging on Zayn’s sleeve to get him to sit back down again. She’s desperate, and Zayn can’t bear to look her in the eyes. From over her shoulder, Louis is staring at the floor, clearly a step ahead from her girlfriend already.

“It’s not a bit of pain. He has to die for them to see if he turns after that.” Her voice is firm and grave, but Zayn can hear the lump in her throat.

There’s a moment of silence in the room, and Zayn can’t do this. He can’t stand here and watch them decide whether they think Harry’s life is worth more than saving themselves, saving whatever’s left of their families and friends. Harry is one person, and Zayn hasn’t known him for all that long, but he doesn’t need to think about it. He also can’t look up and see Niall’s face, or even Liam’s, because he knows what he’ll find and he gets it. Harry’s somehow become his person in these past few weeks, but they all have their own person they’d give up the universe for, and it’s a huge sacrifice, but if he’s finding it so easy to think their lives can be spared for the sake of Harry’s, he figures they must all be thinking the exact same thing but the other way around. Maybe even Harry would think it’s worth it. Maybe he’d be fine with dying if it meant getting a chance to save all of them. But Zayn can’t accept that.

No one says anything, and Zayn stays standing up in the middle of the room, until someone clears their throat.

“Okay, so we know what we have to do now, right?” It’s Louis, obviously, the only one brave enough to break the silence when there’s a heaviness in it enough to make them all feel like drowning in choices bigger than any of them.

“We can’t let him die,” Nick pleads, and Louis scoffs, like she’s offended he’d think she was suggesting such a thing, which makes Zayn look up in surprise because if that’s not what she’s saying, then he doesn’t see what else they have to do.

“We’re not gonna let Harry die, don’t be ridiculous. He’s one of us.” She rolls her eyes like it’s obvious, and Niall turns to her, evidently not so sure.

"But the cure, Lou. The rest of the world. We could save the world, make this stop. Get our lives back.”

"Or we might not. They don’t even know if there’s a cure. They don’t even know if he’s immune.” Liam finally speaks, his arms wrapped around Nick, who’s looking at him with such adoration Zayn fears he might start kissing him right then and there. “We might be letting him die for nothing.”

Niall looks at all of them, a pained expression on her face. She rubs her eyes with the back of her hands, and stays like that, covering her face, until she sighs.

“You never thought there was a cure, did you,” she asks Louis, but it sounds rhetoric, and Louis shakes her head sadly. “It sounded too good to be true.”

Zayn’s been holding his breath for what feels like forever, until Niall stands up and gets her snapback from the bed, firmly putting it on top of her head.

“Alright then?” Louis asks, trying to sound cool, but there’s a note of fear that she can’t disguise.

“I love Harry, even if his puns are always terrible. I’d rather live the few rest of my days hearing him joke than with the guilt of having stood by and watched someone use him like a lab rat. And it’s not like I have anyone to save but you guys, so if you’re all on board… I say we get out of here.”

“Babe, you know… if we do this, there’s no going back. We’re back to square one.” Louis starts saying, reaching out to hold Niall’s hand. “And Harry’s doomed to be the last one of us. The one that gets to watch us all get bit and die.”

“The one that shoots the last one of us, I know.” Niall nods. “He thought about it all the time. How little chances were that he’d somehow die before us, how he’d have to watch us all turn. But I still think he’d rather go through hell with us than die for what might be nothing, you know. I would.”

“It might not be nothing.” Nick says what they’re all thinking, and Liam, much to everyone’s surprise, rolls his eyes at him.

“We’re going in circles. I didn’t go through all the work of getting him here and keeping him  from tripping on something and breaking his neck just to stand by and let him at the mercy of these dudes. The cure might not be real, and that’s enough for me to think it’s not worth our Harry dying, and I honestly don’t know how we’re still sitting here like the mere idea doesn’t make all of you sick.“

“So we’re getting out of here.” Zayn resolves. “And we’re getting him out.”

“It won’t be easy, but yeah. At least we’ll try.” Niall gives him the smallest of smiles, and for a second, Zayn feels his knees shake at the immensity of the decision they’re making. They might be letting the world collapse, making a conscious choice to end life on England.

“There’s like a billion more army guys around here, by the way. Guess they might have figured out you’re here by now, and apparently they don’t trust us to be willing to do a sacrifice for the greater good.” Louis says from where she’s sticking her nose to the window that leads to the hallway.

“Put your best tragic faces on, and we might be able to convince them.” Nick suggests.

“We should split up and gather supplies, since we’re here and all.” Liam says, getting to his feet and almost pushing Nick to do the same. “We can go get meds or whatever, band aids and stuff, and Lou and Niall can take care of the food if they promise not to eat it all.”

It seems to be implicit that Zayn’s gonna be the one to go get Harry, and though he’s grateful for it, a bit of him wants to protest because Liam would be so much better at lifting his unconscious body and carrying him outside. Louis would be so much better at getting rid of anyone who tried to stop her, and Niall would be so much better at sweet talking her way into his room. Zayn might fuck this up, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to live with himself if he does.

“Guns too. We’ll bring guns.” Louis states, and Niall shoots her a questioning look. “We have to. There’s no point in bats anymore, not with things the way they are.”

Niall nods shortly, and her entire body seems to be shivering, but she still looks determined and ready to do whatever it takes.

“We could meet by the window we broke in through, and we’ll cover your back because you’re not gonna be able to do much if you’ve got Harry on your hands.” She says to Zayn, and they all agree on it.

“We don’t have much time.” Liam puts his hand on Zayn’s shoulder, pulling him closer to him. “You’ve got this. I know you probably think you don’t, but you’re the only one who they’ll let in to go see him, they’ve all seen the way you two look at each other so you have a better chance at getting through. You’re stronger than you think, I promise.”

“Are you quoting Winnie the Pooh to him? Honestly, Liam, I was starting to see the good in you.” Louis sighs heavily, and somehow manages to make them all chuckle. It’s like something that was hanging over their heads lifts a little, leaving them more room to breathe, and Zayn inhales deeply, letting the air fill his lungs while he does his best to keep the way they’re all looking at him in his heart. He’s carried Harry in there for so long, maybe it won’t be so hard to literally carry him after all.

The hallways are, like Louis had said, full of people who Zayn doesn’t remember being there before. They’re all armed, and looking at them suspiciously with every step they take. It’s unnerving, and it only stops when after bickering over how much food Niall used to eat before, her and Louis start making out a little too heavily for anyone to be comfortable watching. Zayn himself is slightly weirded out until he catches Louis’s eye and she’s winking at him in a way that tells him once more, they’re one step ahead of him.

No one’s staring at them for a moment there, and Zayn takes the chance to sneak into the elevator, though he has the feeling he’s being closely followed by someone. They should’ve known from the start they were being given too much freedom to roam the halls, clearly someone was keeping their eye on them from the moment they stepped in through the window.

He makes his way through the third floor without anyone stopping him, and it isn’t until he’s in Harry’s room that someone appears. It’s the same doctor from before that opens the door right after Zayn’s closed it, and he’s giving him a stern look that makes him feel about three inches tall.

“Your friend’s doing exactly as he was an hour ago, I thought I’d told you I’d let you know if anything happened.”

Zayn can’t take his eyes off Harry, and how weak he looks. Abruptly unplugging him from whatever it is they’re feeding him through those tubes might not be the best idea, but he can’t take him and all those things. He’ll just get him off it all and then they’ll have to figure out how to fix him up.

“You can’t do it. There’s no way you’re getting out of here with him. It’s a matter of national security, we’ve been waiting for something like this for months now.”

Zayn ignores him, his eyes still on the bed, trying to calculate how exactly he’ll get rid of anyone else who comes his way once he’s got Harry with him. This doctor should be easy to deal with. Liam’s gun is nearly burning in his pocket.

“You selfish kids, can’t you see what you’d be doing?” The doctor isn’t as calm anymore, and he turns towards Zayn, towering over him. “It’s one death that could save billions of lives. You have to learn to see past your nose.”

There’s no more time. They’ll catch the others trying to take things, and they’ll realize what’s going on, and then they won’t have a chance. It has to be now, it has to be quick, and Zayn can’t bring himself to do it. He needs to get rid of this man, but from the moment Liam put his gun in his hand, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stare at his eyes and shoot him. From the bed, Harry lets out a pained grunt, and it’s as if his hands are moving of their own accord, sneaking into his pocket and taking it out.

It’s not until the doctor’s on the floor that he dares look at his hand. They were all leaving the room together when Liam gave him the gun. He doesn’t remember when or who sneaked a taser in his pocket, but that’s definitely what he’s holding in his hand.

There’s a clock ticking loudly in his head, counting down the seconds until the doctor wakes up from his shock, so he takes all tubes off Harry, only stopping to slowly remove the needle that’s feeding him a yellow liquid through his hand, and then he stares at his body for a moment before deciding to ignore the thousand alarms going off in his head telling him he’ll probably collapse if he tries to lift him.

He doesn’t. He takes Harry in his arms, and he kicks the door open, taser still in his hand ready to disarm anyone who might be waiting for him. All he finds however, is Nick and Liam staring sheepishly at him.

“Forgot to mention that thing, didn’t I,” Nick gestures towards the taser, and Zayn sees another body lying on the floor next to them. “Always used to have one on me for personal defense, and they had a couple around here. If you guys said no, I was gonna try save Harry on my own so I may have grabbed them before going to see you.”

“Would you have shocked us if we’d tried to stop you?” Liam asks teasingly, and Nick turns a very deep shade of red.

“Maybe. I didn’t think it through. I wanted to believe you wouldn’t let him die.”

Zayn’s arms are struggling a bit with Harry’s weight, but he takes a deep breath and tightens his hold on him, doing his best not to look at his face because he’s pale and lifeless and he’s not gonna be able to take a single step if he does.

“Let’s go find the others then, c’mon,” he says, and Liam takes the lead, walking towards the stairs.

Louis and Niall are waiting by the window like they’d said, and Zayn doesn’t want to think about the amount of people Nick and Liam had to knock off their way, and how many more will come after them. It won’t be just zombies trying to get them now, and he’s not willing to murder people who haven’t died yet.

“Alright then, back to the wilderness,” Niall grins, carrying a backpack on her shoulders that looks like it has enough for them to survive through a very long winter.

They run, as fast as Zayn can with a sleeping boy in his arms, and Louis swings her bat around whenever someone approaches them. Someone shoots at them at some point, but Liam shoots back, and Zayn tries not to think about any of it. There’s too much on the line. Harry’s a heavy reminder of it. It’s still dark though, and they don’t have lights outside so they’re not really aiming at them. They can hear zombies starting to crawl around them, but Zayn catches glimpses of his friends batting them away, or shooting them, and he concentrates on moving without dropping Harry.

He’s not sure where they’re going because it’s not as if they actually have anywhere to go, but at least they’re walking away from that place. The last bit of civilization, he thinks, but then again, maybe it’s only just the first one they stumble into. Maybe they’ll find people again. Maybe someone else will know how to fix things, and things will get better.

In his arms, Harry’s stirring awake. He can feel his arms going round his neck, hanging on tight to him. He’s drowsy and his eyes are still closed, but he turns his head and buries his nose in Zayn’s chest, taking a deep breath.

They’re blocks away from the building now, Louis and Niall meters ahead of them trying to find somewhere to sneak into, gesturing for them to hurry when they finally find an open door that leads to an abandoned ice cream store. Nick holds the door open for Zayn while Liam gets rid of the few zombies wandering inside the place, and Louis leads them up a staircase that takes them to the roof. It’s far enough away for them to not be seen, and there’s no one trying to shoot them down here, but Zayn can’t put Harry down yet, not when he’s starting to open his eyes, so he sits on the floor, looking at the horizon.

They have to check on him, and his arms are getting really tired, but he’ll let himself have this moment, staring off into the distance, hearing his friends happily sigh as they go through the stolen supplies. They did the right thing. Maybe things won’t ever get better, but Zayn thinks they'll be alright for whatever time they have left. The hopeless feeling that was eating his heart out two months ago isn't there anymore, and it shouldn't make sense because now he truly knows their chances of going back to normal are pretty much null, but he can feel Harry breathing against his neck rather heavily, and there's the rumor of their friends' voices behind them, and it's enough for him.

Harry shuffles in his arms until he's sitting on his lap, almost entirely awake now, but he doesn't look at him. He rests his curly head on his shoulder, and they stare ahead, because it feels like it all means something. The darkness that's starting to fade. The sun, slowly starting to rise.

 

**Author's Note:**

> BTW my beta left me to go see ed sheeran so half of this work may have mistakes that are entirely mine and i apologize for that.


End file.
